In Hollywood, young starlets are as disposable as Wet-Naps. Sometimes breaking from the horde of pretty faces and prettier bodies requires a single star-making moment. Rosario Dawson has been in the biz ever since director Larry Clark cast her in 1995's notorious Kids after spotting the beauty sitting on a Manhattan stoop. But it wasn't until she appeared last year in Spike Lee's 25th Hour dressed as a bombshell schoolgirl in a plaid micromini, black knee-highs, and a fresh white shirt that every guy in America thought, Sweet Sister Maria, who is that girl?

This fall, you can catch her in The Rundown alongside the Rock and in Shattered Glass, with Hayden Christensen as disgraced New Republic writer Stephen Glass. Working on the latter movie sparked a deep suspicion of journalists; nonetheless, Dawson agreed to be interviewed over lunch at a restaurant in New York City, where she lives.

ROSARIO DAWSON: Not at all. I only got drunk for the first time when I was eighteen. I was the baby on the set. I was still a virgin when I did the movie, and Larry kept talking about who was gonna take my virginity.

RD: Ah, I drink. But it's only been in the last year and a half that I've been drinking more. I kind of discovered beer, and I really love it now. I've been working my way down from Guinness because that's what I started with.

RD: I've thought about it a lot. You have this little girl who's sort of at your mercy, and you're the teacher. My character knows she's hot, and she's gonna use it. But at the same time, she's inexperienced. If someone really just steps up to her right then, what will she do? And that's exciting for men.

ESQ: You're single. How's the dating world treating you?

RD: I'm very specific in what I'm looking for. I've been putting up shelves in my apartment, and I'm thinking, I don't want to be with a guy who doesn't know how to put up a retaining wall. I don't want to be with a guy who doesn't even fucking know what a retaining wall is.

RD: No. My friends don't even try to make jokes about it -- we always snap on each other -- but they don't even bother. You can't do worse.

ESQ: So why go from the acclaimed 25th Hour to working with the Rock, a guy who wears a spandex onesie?

RD: The Rundown is just a fun action movie. And speaking of that schoolgirl outfit, there's this big fight scene at the end of the movie. I'm wearing fatigues and I'm all bloody and I'm handcuffed and I've got sweat and dirt and mud caked on me, and my cleavage is going everywhere. And on that day, of all shoot days, every guy in the crew wanted to take pictures with me. I'm like, "So you want me dirty, bound, and bloody?" Riiiiiight.

ESQ: Just to assure you, I'm no Stephen Glass -- I'm not going to go back to the office and fabricate this whole interview.

RD: Everything that's going on with journalism is really interesting to me. It's an eye-opening experience to know that there really isn't a lot stopping these people from just bullshitting their way through everything. That's why I did Shattered Glass, because I want reporters to ask me about it, and I can be like, "So, what do you think about journalistic integrity?"